


After Eden

by lucius_complex



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Obsession, Revenge, Slow Burn, Space Opera, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-11 21:53:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4453769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki remembers nothing, and Tony has lived and died a thousand times. </p><p>One of them is lying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

_ _

**_After Eden_ **

_by Lucius Complex_

 

 

_Sometimes I’m terrified of_

_my heart; of its constant hunger_

_for whatever it is it wants._

_The way it stops and starts._

_~Edgar Allen Poe_

1

A cursed and fallen idol, they whispered of him. Icy and unfeeling, a stain on the pantheon of immortals. And so Loki is sentenced.

They do not tell him what his punishment is his, so for some years, Loki laughed at this incarceration – chained to a cell with his jaws locked together by a mask, his tongue pressed down by the cold bite of steel. As if keeping him from speaking was tantamount of keeping him from _being._ From plotting their downfalls.

How unimaginative even gods could be, how unbelievably trite.

For some years, he mocked their effort to shame him – he is Liesmith, he is far more slippery, far more vengeful than they will _ever_ be.

Time ticked on, and Loki kept count of each remembered slight to his person.

Then came loneliness, then came silence, and Loki came to realize his punishment was no mere prison term. And the long corridors of quiet stretched on as he quelled his growing disquiet - until one day it dawned on him - the bitter truth that his utter subjugation was nothing more than the collective withdrawing of Asgard’s attention.

That Loki had been forgotten.  A relic, discarded and overlooked, probably with relief.

From thereon, darkness and silence reined. The acid burn of bitterness and creeping, slithering fear coated his mind, corroding that which he once was and leaving huge gaping holes where righteous anger once reigned.

And even through that, time kept trickling on, like sand down his throat. Not enough to suffocate, only to constantly pull his awareness back to his situation. His abandonment.

 _'No, Loki'_  - had now become words made flesh, words wrought into shackles. Words ringing in his ears, over and over, until he rubbed his wrists raw in these too-short chains, attempting to pull his hands over his ears.

Time moves, but it would not be hurried, neither would it be made to stop. And so there is the insupportable effort of _going on_ , and on, and on. Of waiting, in this bleak and utter darkness, with only the unbearable thrum his own heartbeat for company. After two centuries, the sound of it is excruciating, terrible. Loki cannot scream, and so he scratches himself to the bone, if only to hear the echo of something _else_ – if only to assure himself of what he still is – flesh and form, not just a dream, not just a lingering shade of bottomless hunger that used to be a god.

Lesser immortals would have wasted away into mere memories. But Loki knew of chaos, and understood the nature of change. There was always a tunnel to emerge from. Light may take time to swim through the darkness, but it always reached eventually. And so he endured, past the ages that come and go; dreaming of all the pages and chapters of time that fluttered far beyond his reach.

*

2

Loki comes awake to the sound of breathing and cursing – sparks that dazzle his eyes like fireworks. His mind stutters to a start like a current has been passed through him and his mouth opens -

‘Ah good - you’re alive. Hold still,’ the vast being says to him, and his voice shakes through the cave of Loki’s prison, godlike and fearful. Loki flinches from this terrible presence, and if not for the chains holding him down he would have cowered on the floor before it.

‘Its better if you lie back down,‘ the voice warns before the bright sparks begin to emerge from his hands again. Something clatters to the ground and he picks it up, cursing again.

The sparks threaten to overwhelm him. They hiss pain and danger at Loki, who ducks and struggles until a hand shoves him back, gently but firmly. In the cavern he hears the voice speaks again, this time with less vibration. ‘Hold still, I don’t want to take out a limb, ok? You’ll be free soon.’

 _Free –_ free is a sound that he recognizes, and Loki grabs at its faint familiarity. Random snatches of words dance through his mind. He doesn’t understand much, having forgotten many languages, but _free_ is a word that Loki remembers clinging to in the early part of his incarceration. And so he subsides – surely he must have wanted this at some point, even if he no longer remembers or wishes for freedom.

‘Ah shit, this is the fucking hardest metal I’ve ever sawed through.’

Finally there is a chink, the sound of falling iron. Loki jerks - for the first time, his hands can reach his face, trace the cold lines of metal wrapped around his jaw.

‘Done,’ the voice finally announces with no small satisfaction. ‘By the stars, that’s some insanely solid ironwork. Whoever put you here _really_ didn’t want anyone to find you, eh? Can you get up and walk?’

His voice attacks the sensitive points of Loki’s neck and ears, makes him shudder with their vibrations on his skin.  Shapes throb around him, vies with sound and movement to undo him. It is all Loki can do to keep from rolling onto the floor.  His own legs, asleep for so long, spasm their protest.

‘Jeezes you’re in bad shape,’ the voice mummers beside him, terseness tempered with sympathy. ‘Here let m  - _hey_ I’m not gonna hurt you, I’m just carrying you-’

And Loki is weightless, jostled.

Footfalls thud heavily on the sand, the weight of the air around him shifts - his body sways as if on a boat.

_(what is a boat?)_

His fingers claw at leather, but its like hanging on to butter.

‘Just let go. You know I’ve got you.‘ The vessel which carries him opens again, and words tumble out, warm as memories. His voice is like a blanket that sticks to Loki’s chest. ‘I’d say you must have done some crazy shit to be locked up like this. Too bad I’m not a fan of incarceration, deserved or otherwise. What the hell did you do to deserve this, huh?’

Loki shakes his head.

He doesn’t remember.

*


	2. Chapter 2

**After Eden**

by Lucius Complex

 

3

He wakes up in a white ship, in a chamber small enough to cross in two strides, on a bed that is made from a shelf pulled from the wall. It dawns on Loki that he is being kept in sort of medical bay.

His rescuer introduces himself as Stark, a mortal. Midgardian, Loki suspects from his scars and the fragile, leathery make of his person.  He gave the impression of one long accustomed to being alone, and barges in and out without ceremony or consideration for Loki’s privacy.

Loki lies on the narrow bed for days, recovering and remembering nothing. The brightness of his new cave beats down on him. Even dimmed as far as they could go, the lights are so bright that his eyes would shed tears for hours on end.

The mortal checks in on him, offering clean clothes which Loki accepts, and some revolting broth in a cup, which Loki leaves lying on the table untouched.  After the second day the mortal curls his lips and says: ‘I’m not wasting anymore of my eats on you, so you can come out and beg when you’re good and ready.’

Loki does not answer. Instead he lies in bed and unmoving as his body gradually regains more function. It takes a week before he sits up for the first time, and hours of staring blankly into space before he finally summons the will to inch off the bed. At last he finally stands on his feet, although once that happens all of Loki's previous restfulness evaporates and there is no sitting back down. 

He spent the next few days wandering the cramped confines of his room, examining the contents of many small drawers. They are filed with vials, bandages, and strange implements Loki cannot identify. He touches the rows of mask-like breathing apparatus with their elastic bands - their transparent and rubbery texture disturbs him. They look like haunted things, like the disemboweled faces of ghosts.

He throws a cloth over the masks and tries to forget the sight of them.  

*

Finally he ventures out of his private room and hesitantly into the deck of the ship. He lingers behind the only other presence on the ship until Stark finally acknowledges him.

‘Finally got tired of lying in bed all day, eh? Come with me.’

Loki finds himself fed with the unappetizing broth again, this time with a side of bread. He watches Stark create their sustenance with powder and hot water, whisked in bowls. The mortal’s face is lean and roguish, his features reveal little of his true thoughts.

He has the face of a survivor, Loki thinks. One who has beaten down impossible odds.  

Stark eats the same thing as him which Loki does not expect, for the broth is truly vile. Stark’s portion of bread is much larger and there is a part of Loki’s consciousness that wants to protest pettily at this, but it is a voice so completely disconnected from his current state that he doesn’t know how reconcile the two and so stays silent.

He watches the emotions rise and fall within himself, completely detached.

Whilst they eat Stark quizzes him about his history and origins, but Loki cannot answer because he does not know himself.

‘Well, you had no Credits on you, and your clothes or whatever _didn’t_ crumble into pieces the moment I touched it – is _prehistoric_. So I’d say you’ve been in hibernation for some time, Sleeping Beauty. Didn’t see any air vents and you weren’t placed in a cryptopod so I’d love to have known which lost font of ancient wisdom came up with that. I don't suppose you can tell me the science behind it?'Stark tore off a chunk of bread and pointed at him with it. ‘Do you even remember your own name?’

_No, Loki._

Within his field of vision, the broken remnants of Loki’s old shackles lay on the kitchen counter beside the sink. Why the mortal had seen fit to place them there, Loki did not know, but it fills him with a vague sense of threat.

He licks his lips. ‘Yes. Its Loki.’

‘At least you remember that much,’ Stark grunted. ‘Well, Loki. Normally I’ll ask for payment for liberating you from that shithole, but I doubt you’ve anything of value left to offer. Didn’t find anything lying around either, so I’ll be take this-‘ Stark pointed a thumb at the remnants of Loki’s shackles, black and charred. ‘- and I'm thinking you'd be happy to see the last of it. Objections?’ 

He shakes his head. He could not care less what Stark chooses to do with such disturbing reminders.

Happier at having gotten his way, Stark resumes chewing. ‘Do you know what sort of metal they used on you? None of my machines can pick up a match.’

Loki shakes his head again.

‘Pity.’

They finish the rest of the meal in silence. Stark cleans out every drop of broth, even from his fingers, and leaves as soon as his bowl was empty. He doesn’t say a word, or leave Loki with instructions.  He seems completely unbothered by the presence of a stranger on his ship.

The air seems colder in his wake.

Loki clutches his own bowl and begins to eat in an attempt to concentrate on something other than the silence clouding over him.

*

4

As the days roll by, he discerns that Stark is clearly tolerating his presence. Perhaps he is simply deciding how best to dispose of him, to gauge if Loki would be of any use.

By now Loki has found countless opportunities to observe Stark in his element. He has searched through that impassive gaze several times and found them blank and unrecognizing.

He does not know what he had expected to find there, or why Stark's coldness fills him with anxiety. Yet something about the way the mortal moves and behaves pulls at him. To Loki he seems a distractedly small creature; but touchable and _real_ , the smell of leather and oil rising from him like mist after rain. 

He does not remember Midgard. Yet he is almost sure he knows this man, the sardonic twist of lips, the almost delicate symmetry of shoulder blades that push out of Stark's thin shirt.  

‘If you know your constellations, I could use an extra pair of hands around the ship.’

Loki picked up the charts Stark throws at him with a frown. The language is unknown, yet certain symbols are recognizable, if slightly altered from what he remembers. They look as if someone had created a shorthand of a much older script. He picks out the location of familiar stars, named differently but with the same reassuring formations that they were born with, constant through the eternities.

The sight fills Loki with relief.

Stark folds his arms together. ‘Well?’ His gaze is sharp-witted, not exactly cold, but not friendly either.

Loki puts the maps down and nods.

*


	3. Chapter 3

**After Eden**

by Lucius Complex

 

5

They alighted on a world known as Grẚwpdalea, which Stark describes as well known for its highly publicized pleasure houses and illicit black markets. The streets are filled with a chaos of mixed races: druid elves jostling with androids runners, dwarven darrows dragging along their golem slaves.

Loki keeps his gaze low as he follows Stark about his business. 

The cacophony terrifies him, not for their potential danger – instincts tell him that _he_ is far more dangerous – but for the fact that he identifies with nothing save for Stark, desires to follow nothing and no one save the Midgardian beside him. It is this thought and the inherent dependency behind it that rubs him raw.

It makes Loki painfully aware that the long years of incarceration has rendered his own curiosity a blunt and broken thing; where it once must have been sharp, exhilarating and compelling.

Tony’s easy sauntering speaks volumes of his familiarity with the place as he directs them past alleyways and labyrinths of cramped buildings cowering together. Loki spends his time observing the comings and goings of the creatures around them, the terrifying number and diversity of weapons he encounters, hidden or otherwise – on the races that jostle past them in the streets. Stark pushes them on, deeper into the pulsing alien settlement, until they arrive at an auction house, vast and expansive enough to assume the looks of a large marketplace.

The air in the auction house is thick and congealing, like rotting, gassy meat. Stark’s face shines like a beacon in a place with hardly any other humans present, and Loki’s eyes tracks him as he slips amidst aliens races like a mastiff tracks the movement of his keeper. A corner of his brain that still fights for his own survival whispers that out of all the races in the universe, it is a mortal who has freed him, and this was no coincidence. He will not lose his only means of understanding himself and the hostile new world he now inhabits.

Stark had been hunting a particular object for his client. Reshtihs, he’d explained, are a race that valued soul stones above all things, and anyone who could retrieve these would earn himself a hefty payload, not to mention future commissions. He shoves and jostles his way around until he finds a company of elves who clearly recognized Tony, albeit with distaste. Loki surmised that the elves operated as middlemen of sorts. After a brief argument in a language that Loki had no hope of understanding, they are lead to an outbuilding.

Loki observes the elves as he climbs up the stairs and into the dim interiors of their meeting chambers, overlooking a rusting balcony. They wore weapons freely on their hips and the skins of leonine things; foreheads protruding with the tusks of mammals. Their eyebrows were tattooed in green ink.

The elves Loki had once known abhorred the killing of creatures. They would never be found in a place as stinking of greed and merchantry as Grẚwpdalea. The intervening centuries has clearly brought them low and stripped away the refinements of their race.

Loki is well aware that had he been more himself, this knowledge would please him inordinately well.  

The meeting room they are ushered into is rickety and bare but for a table and a few solid benches.  The air is moldy, the watery shafts of sunlight that filters through the awning a sickly green.

‘Charming,’ Tony say glibly into the space. ‘Always good for friends to see friends going up in the world.’

‘You are one to talk, _human_ ,’ the elf that was clearly the only magician sneered. ‘Your role in our affairs is no more than a hunting dog, sniffing down remote corners for more of whatever we place in front of you.’

‘You can call me whatever you like,’ Stark says breezily. ‘As long as you pay me for the previous two stones I delivered, and now the third.’

‘That is impossible until you deliver the full terms of your contract. We require you to retrieve the stabilizer for the stones, as quickly as you can. We cannot transport the stones over to the Reshtihs without it. ‘

‘That would be a new contract.’

‘We will not pay you for the stones if you do not provide the stabilizer.’

Stark inhales his irritation but does not argue his point. ‘How long will the soul stones stay in chrysalis before they become unbalanced?’

The wizard elf barks out a short, brutal laugh. ‘That is too much unnecessary information for a short-lived, feeble mortal like you. Your job is clear; it is to be our retriever, and nothing else.’

‘I would approve of that sentiment,’ Tony drawls, folding his sleeves away from his arms to reveal iron segments grafted into his skin. ‘-if only it was enough to do business with.’

The elf draws himself up, incredulous. ‘Surely you cannot be that stupid. You know you cannot stand against us.’

Tony grins. ‘Ah ha ha, but I’m too short-lived to know better.’ Metal gauntlets fold around his fist as Stark lifts the elf by his neck and holds him up in a stranglehold.

‘You dare-’

‘Been nice knowing you,’ Tony says, and snaps his neck as effortlessly as a bird’s.

Loki feels his shoulders tense and his heart thrumming as the air turns thick with violence. Beside him, the remaining elves shift their bodies towards him, axes raising.

The human shoots one in the shoulder with his gauntlet and turns to Loki. 

‘Go hide,’ he barks. ‘I’ll find you later.’

Indecision tears at him as the sound of shouting echoes from below, booted feet pounding up the staircase.

Loki stares at the balcony, the only avenue he has for escape. And then it is too late because the fighting starts in earnest. He finds himself watching with rapt fascination as Stark wraps his entire body into a metal suit that is partially grafted into his skin, strange tubes jumping out to attach itself into the base of his spine.

Loki's eyes take in every detail, exhilaration pounding in his temples as Stark lifts his hands and fires several rounds of unholy firepower into their attackers, finally gaining an understanding to the source of the many mysterious scars that riddle Stark’s body. Mortal he might be, but frailty is something he has certainly overcome.

They press this initial advantage for many minutes. But whilst Stark deals adequately with elven weaponry, Loki quickly discerns that the mortal has next to no protection against magic, something their enemies quickly discover. More and more magicians press to the forefront of the battle, and from behind his cover of safety Loki sees each successive blast from the elf sorcerers drawing something vital out of Stark, a strain that covers his body in sweat and turns his eyes an almost feverish red. 

If he does not contribute to the fray and soon, they are unlikely to make it out alive.

Decision made, Loki draws a deep breath and gathers power deep around him, coils it deep beneath his skin where it hums in vicious expectancy. It is a card he reveals reluctantly, but now that he has no choice he would be sure to throttle its full value from it.

He targets the magic wielders first. A series of daggers, spelled to displace magic embed themselves into his targets. Then Loki attacks, trusting Stark to cover him against the rain of firepower in his path.

He runs through the first magician with a thunderbolt, pushing his still electric body into his compatriots. Stark discharges a stungun, making certain they stay down.  Loki jerks another weapon into his hands and slashes a face. He turns, executes a swift kick, and embeds the same dagger into a waiting soldier’s arteries.

‘Damn,’ he hears Stark whistle in the foreground, sounding impressed.

Dagger after dagger appears in Loki’s hands and he uses them with the same brutal efficiency on the descending cavalry. Stark is whistling as he continues to shoot, suddenly jaunty with confidence. The blasts from his gauntlets lights up the room in electrifying shades of white and red, bathing the growing heap of bodies with surreal shadows. From the back of the room he dispatches whatever Loki misses with clean, efficient shots.

‘Will you do the honors?’ The human finally gestures to the last elf  attempting escape with an almost polite gesture.  Obediently, Loki lifts his hands; churning a turbine-like power from his surroundings that glows until it suddenly shoots out and envelopes the last elf in a blinding ball light. They both watch the soldier turn to ash and toppled over the balcony onto the alleyway below, presumably littered by now with similar unfortunate bodies.  

Out of immediate danger, he turns to look at Stark then, waiting for a reaction. He is not disappointed. The mortal’s mouth has fallen open, his hair standing awry from the force of the blow.

Loki waits, and Tony does not take long to recover.

‘At least now I know why somebody thought it’d be a good idea to lock you up.’

Loki flinches at the words, against the sensation of Stark brushing his blunt curiosity around the gaping holes of his memories. Then he recovers and visibly pulls himself together. His eyebrows arch in speculation as Stark hoists his stungun over a shoulder.

‘Well that was fun, though not as profitable as I'd hoped. Let’s go see what else you can do, Sleeping Beauty.’

*


	4. Chapter 4

**AFTER EDEN**

by Lucius Complex

 

6

They more or less decimated the small colony of elves;  and after robbing them of Credits, strolled out of the Sixth Quarter as if it’s a nice night out for a ramble in the neighborhood. Stark keeps up a squirrel-like chatter that distracts even Loki, pointing out various points of interest and dragging them around the stinking city with highly questionable enthusiasm. For a mortal, his ability to recover his equilibrium after a fight that could have gone very badly wrong is almost admirable.  

They sidle through narrow side streets, clotted with shadows. Torches burn fitfully in the darkness, hissing with the intermittent rain. Stark makes them stop in front of a peddler and buys skewers of some over-cooked, unidentifiable meat that he wolfs down in seconds, talking non-stop all the while. Loki is so bemused by this lengthy and unnecessary excursion that he misses the shadow slinking up behind him.

‘Hey Lokes-’

Loki turns, his face expectant.

Stark works his jaw soundlessly for a moment, then says; ‘You look like a drowned cat.’

He blinks, unsure of how to reply. A shadow falls over him as a young whore catches his arm, her face gaunt with hunger and desperation. Reflectively he turns and raises his dagger to slash her down.

Quick as lighting Stark grabs his arm as the girl stifles a scream. ‘Stop it.’

Frozen with uncertainty, Loki watches as the girl collapses onto the puddled streets sobbing uncontrollably.

With a hard look Stark releases his arm and squats down in rain to speak .

‘He doesn’t mean that, lil darling, you just startled him. Here’s a bag of Credits, you know you won’t be able to catch any customers tonight. Not with the rain, yes?’

The girl gasps at him as the weight of the pouch registers in her hands, her fey, orange eyes widening into luminous spheres. Stark raises an eyebrow at her gratified disbelief. ‘They’re real. Buy yourself a new life. Go on, lil darling, scat.’

They watch her stumble away, her thin limbs shining in the rain and barely able to hold her up.

Stark straightens and scoffs once he catches Loki’s stare. ‘What? Did you want your share of credits?’

The god shakes his head. Credits mean little to one like him, who possesses neither purpose nor direction.  

‘I thought so.’ The mortal grins and pounds him on the back. ‘Let’s go back to the ship.’

Loki winces at this rough demonstrating of his regard; the mortal still had his gauntlets on. Likely he did it on purpose, as payback for not telling him earlier about Loki’s unique battles skills.

They walk back together; Stark insisting on taking a ‘shortcut’ that is much longer than necessary, Loki is sure.

*

‘You get all of this?’

Loki purses his lips, hiding the mild buzz of irritation at being questioned. ‘Yes.’

‘Ok, do it again and let me see.’

Shrugging, Loki repeats the motions Stark had taken him through. He knows by now that his actions are precise, his capacity for memorising whatever Stark threw at him nigh flawless. It takes no effort for him to learn how to steer a ship, parse through new alien languages, operate an assault riffle in diverse gravity fields.

Although he isn’t about to give up his throwing daggers, anachronistic or otherwise. Not even for Stark.

This refusal to embrace technology disgruntles Stark like something vile had crawled under his skin and died. 

‘You could be so much more efficient with a laser.’

 _‘No,’_ Loki says.

‘I have a spare Compactor in the dock. Fifteen hundred meter range, liquid laser, high capacity magazines.’

The god spares him a glance.

‘Fine! Stay in the dark ages, see if I care,’ the human finally throws up his arms in disgust. ‘Suit up princess, and let’s move along.’

He drags Loki into the freezing bowels of the ship’s circuitry, rattling out their names and functions, then took him through a list of problems he had been dealing with. It’s an extensive list.

Too extensive; it soon transpires that Stark’s magnificent hovel of a ship is only a few rasping steps from the trash heap. And risking their lives to boot.

‘Why put up with such expensive repairs?’

‘Pepper’s an old ship,’ Tony says defensively, ‘but that doesn’t mean I’ll abandon her. Come on, one last place to go.’

Loki inclines his head and follows. He can sense the story behind the voice, but now is neither the time nor place.

‘Now that you’re up to date, we’ll move on to the really important implements, so pay attention,’ Stark announces once they get to the kitchen and pulls out a frying pan.

‘Can you cook?’

*

The kettle joins the omelets sizzling quietly on the stove.

Within a week, Loki had discovered that the fastest way to draw Tony to him had been through the judicious use of eggs.

‘Hot food,’ the mortal sighs, sinking into the stool ‘Loki my erstwhile but pseudo-mute companion, you’re definitely learning to earn your keep on this ship.’

Loki grunts and turns on the tap. The water that dribbles out is meager, recycled more times than he can count. ‘If you can call it a ship.’

‘Hey Greensleeves! As long as she flies and keeps us alive, she’s a ship. Don’t make me choose between the two of you.’

'Between this-' Loki proceeds to kick at a portion of the wall, which rattles ominously, 'and your recent ascendancy to omelettes?'

‘Shut up.'

The god turns back to the sink. ‘Eat your eggs.’

*

7

Every now and then he catches sight of the tattoo on his back. To Loki's own surprise, it'd taken him weeks to realize his back contains the figure of a tree detailed in green ink, one he has no memory of obtaining.

The tree is a slender one, carefully cradled in the space between his shoulder blades, like something precious. The highly-detailed leaves are plentiful, in ink so dark as to look almost black. Some of the scars on the trunk are deliberately raised, an impression of bark burnt onto flesh. When his hands had first encountered them, jagged and dry-textured in the Stark's tiny and mirror-less shower booth, he'd merely assumed they were old battle wounds.

Tony had asked him about it once, when they’d both been stripped down to their waists, pounding their shirts on the pink-mossy rocks of the Yarrwal river. 

‘What the hell is that?’

Loki’s hands reached up and touch his back with tentative fingers, attempting to reconnect with a meaning he could no longer grasp. ‘It’s a tattoo.’

Stark rolls his eyes at the obvious answer, so Loki continues.

‘If this is a shape that once had meaning to me, it is one I no longer recall.’

‘Well, it’s not just any tattoo, princess. Look at the design, subject matter - it’s definitely Midgardian.’ Tony turns to take his measure in, eyes narrowing. ‘You must have spent a whole lot of time there at some point.’

Loki lifts his shoulders; he doesn’t remember. ‘Would you know the… make of such a tree?’

‘I’m no botanist, but I could take a scan, JJ will pull it out. Hold still.’

Tony fiddles with his computerized armband.  ‘Ok let’s see what comes up. It’s a… it says here it’s a fig tree, earth specimen yadda yadda. Went extinct circa 3000. Shit, your tree is old. _You’re_ really old.’

Loki cannot help but agree. Circa 3000 was worlds ago, when time herself was relatively young and most civilizations still lived in isolation, ignorant of each other.

‘Maybe its an ex-girlfriend. Or maybe you used to have a better half and her name was Fig or something.’

Loki turns back to his washing. Stark had conveniently left the cleaning of all their dishes to him, on top of his own laundry. ‘It matters little now.’

‘Guess it doesn’t,’ Stark shrugs, although Loki can still feel the blunt edge of his stare drilling a hole into his back. ‘I’m just amazed that anything from Earth is capable of lasting quite so long.’

It is on the tip of Loki’s tongue to ask what Midgard’s standing is in this brave new world. But he has his own suspicions, based on the indifference of other races on their last planet. Stark hadn't been regarded as anomaly, but his race was very clearly rare.

He swallows the curiosity, for now. Facts are something he can always discover by himself, before asking Stark for his own version of events.

As for the tree, it does not feature much in his new life. Sometimes Loki wonders how a common Migardian tree would come to mean so much to the person he used to be, to etch a permanent reminder on himself, resistant even to sophisticated removal spells.

But that god of old is gone, and Loki does not have the means to call him back.

Although something about the look of it – a shaded and gnarled patience  – gives it an illusion of perpetuity. Of meetings and deeds carried out in secret beneath its sprawling branches. It whispers of memory; of waiting and wanting.

Loki stares at the holographic illusion of the tree on his palm. It touches something in his heart, but when he reaches out, there is nothing.

A loud and sudden banging sound startles him, and Loki closes his fist, banishing the image. From the front of the ship he can hear the sound of Stark’s cursing.

The god vaults down from the shelf he had been idly day dreaming on and pushes silently up the stairwell to investigate.

A long extinct tree is not an urgent mystery. It can wait.

*


	5. Chapter 5

                                    

**_After Eden_ **

_by Lucius Complex_

 

7

It seemed easy so easy for Loki kill. Like making omelets.  He leaves a trail of desiccated bodies with almost the same calm indifference as he leaves broken egg shells on the tiles.

It feels methodical. Natural. 

Loki feels like he should at least pretend to be uncomfortable. To grimace or flinch when he pulled the trigger, or palpitate with some sense of false bravado. Even a hardened soldier like Tony experiences visible spikes of adrenaline, grits and bites in before taking a life out. But Loki knows he kills like a machine:  with no regrets, no fear of consequences, simply moving on with calm dexterity to the next and next and next.

As the alight on planet after planet, station after station Loki notes that at each meeting Stark took them to he would always be the only human present. He wondered if it was because Stark was so exiled, or if Midgardians even after all this time kept firmly to themselves.

But Stark keeps a punishing pace, and there is no time to find out.

*

More and more he finds himself surreptitiously seeking out and devouring the sparse information that exists about Midgard. There is precious little to discover – most of the descriptive resources that manages to Loki pull out merely describes basic planetary statistics and categorize the planet’s as resource poor and low tech. Amidst more advanced civilizations, it is largely overlooked; its weaponry regarded as primitive, its diplomatic cache non-existent.

Clearly this makes Stark is a gross anomaly amongst his people. Loki watches the screen rotating visuals of life on earth, and tries to imagine the Midgardian having once been a part of so prosaic and apathetic a system. His imagination comes away empty. Perhaps the man hadn’t been born on his home planet.

Yet somehow Loki was certain Stark had been born and grew up there. There was something about him, something desolate and hardheaded and _alone_ – that screamed it. It is to this aloneness that Loki finds himself gravitating to. To sorely depend on.

Stark smells like an animal, a sharp and organic stain. His presence is impossible to ignore, feral against the sparse and plastic interiors of the ship. The first time Tony leaves him alone in the ship, Loki’s defenses had crumbled like soft dirt beneath a wave, faced with a silence that terrified him.

It is not a total silence, for the ship hums with sound. But rather than envelop him, the noises seem to push him away. They make a foreign and voiceless hum, rather than form a comforting lull.

The realization of being alone in space is a crushing, dismantling knowledge. The screens of blank, empty skies fill him with some hollow, unnamed dread that is akin to not being able to breathe. Loki finds that he does not like space, with its empty fields of floating rocks and vast spheres of gasses. Not without Tony around, a visibly buffer against the cold, pitiless elements.

Thunderstorms bother him, whether they occurred on a planet or in space.

Loki notices that many of the planets they alight on sport bright pink flashes of lightning – ominous and awe-inspiring. One of the spaceports they’d landed on had harnessed the constant lighting storms as a source of power, and during their stay Loki felt his nerves becoming electrified, as if currents were passing through him. It was the only time Tony ever called him distracted during a mission.   

Thunder in space isn’t a random chance of event but the act of flying past galaxy 3C303, whose black hole emits a magnetic field that shoots electrical currents strong enough to be felt a thousand light years away.

Most people steered their spacecraft far afield to avoid being fried.  Tony wasn’t most people. 

He takes to standing behind Tony’s chair or in front of his door until the man came out of his room or finally noticed him skulking around.

‘Look at you eh? Big bad killing machine, afraid of a bit of lightning.’

Loki knows he does not need to reply - the way he flinches involuntarily each time the thunder cracks is answer enough.

Stark's face doesn’t soften, but he does drop a stack of Midgardian cards on the console before them. ‘Let’s teach you how to shuffle eh?

*

Loki place his gloved hands over the steel bars of the control platform and braces for argument.

 _‘Uhuhuh,_ ’ Tony sing from the stern. ‘I really don’t like that look you’re sporting. It’s about crystals, isn’t it? If you’re sporting that mug it’s definitely going to be crystals.’

Since Stark is mortal his survival depends on his ability to obtain and hoard power sources, guarding it from usurpers and thieves. He therefore possesses a dragon-like tendency towards hoarding and releases his crystals to Loki only grudgingly.

Stark used to have to charge his crystals one by one, akin to filling a bottle from a source. It used to take forever and can only be done in selected and usually very public places, which is basically the equivalent of hanging a sign on one’s neck asking to be robbed. Loki however merely needs to hold his hands over an entire mound of uncharged crystals. To quicken the process it helps to be near a source of energy, but it is not necessary.

This revelation of course disgusted Stark, who has yet to get over it.

‘We need new fuel cells.’

‘This ship is not exactly running on air, Greensleeves.’

‘This ship requires _spare_ fuel cells.’

A grunt and a pause is his reply for several moments. Loki waits.

‘J tells me there’s spare fuel cells in the east cabin.’

‘The ultra-dense deuterium we currently use is barely adequate to outrun our enemies.’

‘But it works! We’re still kicking aren’t we? Why do we need to carry all that extra weight around?’

‘That extra weight you refer to is part of the most _common_ of standard safety practices in running a spacecraft.’

‘The first law of kipple,’ Tony lectures obliviously from the pulpit of his stern, ‘is to remember that kipple drives out non-kipple.’

Loki takes a deep fortifying breath and continues. ‘I also require four crystals to repair the anti-missile components.’

‘Four!’ Tony indignantly explodes. ‘Are you trying to build a new planet in the basement?’

‘Four crystals, Stark. The ship won’t survive another shooting like last month.’

‘So we’ll fly _higher_. Stop asking. We ain’t exactly flushed.’

‘And I need to upgrade the anti-gravity propulsion systems.’

‘Then we’ll fly faster. Zero to a hundred in 0.3.’

Loki raises an incredulous eyebrow. ‘ _Towards the ground?’_

‘Read my mind, did you?’ Stark snapped. ‘You get two, Greensleeves. Make do.’

‘Ridiculous,’ Loki snorts as he stalks away.

‘Attaboy.’

*


	6. Chapter 6

_ _

**_After Eden_ **

_by Lucius Complex_

 

8

Slowly, diligently, Stark unearths his talents one by one. Some of them are obvious, such as his unearthly ability to never miss a mark, or his prowess with magic. Some gifts, even Loki himself had not suspected he possessed.

One hidden skill in particular, bothers him a great deal.

They discover it when Stark drags them into making landfall on yet another interminable planet to conclude negotiations and sign dozens of richly decorated bio-electrical and magical contracts: agreements and palavers that Loki had somehow known were based on lie or truth whether he knew of their contents or otherwise.

‘They’re lying,’ he signals to the human whilst pretending to play bodyguard. Amazingly, Stark had decoded his subtle signals and played along. Loki thinks nothing of it, but halfway on the journey back however, the mortal suddenly speaks up.

‘How did you know? About the lying.’

‘I-‘ Loki frowns. ‘I just do.’

‘Is it like a woo-woo magic thing?’

‘No. Its- it’s like an existing sound or colour. A natural part of… everything else. I see it, others don’t.’

‘Dead useful, that.’

He doesn’t know why, but he can’t bring himself to agree. ‘I don’t know.’ 

‘Hmm. Guess too much truth can be a bit of a dick.’

Something jabs at Loki’s gut. A kind of icy fist that reaches into his bowel and twists. If he hadn’t been sitting down Loki is sure he’d have sank to his knees.

‘Hey. Are you ok?’

‘Yes.’ Loki exhales. It wasn’t quite a memory, but it was a twinge. A piece of the past. Not for the first time he wonders what he must have gone through, to emerge so hollow from the prison of his enforced sleep. But his brain skitters away yet again from the grasping fingers of these questions, unwilling to explore. 

‘Well,’ Stark drawls after another interminable silence, ‘If this is lie-detection thing is going to be happening a lot, we should work out a proper hand sign. I bet everyone in that room thought we were about to kiss.’

*

Stark likes to dangle random lures in front of Loki in the hopes of soliciting a reaction. He calls them _projects_ , but then Stark calls a great many things projects.

‘You’re pretty easygoing for a guy who’s been in a coma for a couple of millennium. Don’t you want to explore? Eat a cheeseburger? Look for old friends?’

Loki’s answer is more often than not a variation of _not today,_ a response that seemed to satisfy the human well enough. But then Stark doesn’t ask him much about his origin, despite his natural tendency for curiosity. He deliberately stays away from Loki’s past with a delicacy that borders on unnatural. Stark is not a subtle man, but he is a breathtakingly complex one – who probably layers plans upon plans that twists upon itself like snakes. Who calls himself a merchant, and was clearly anything _but._

He has the penetrating yet abstract gaze of one who had spent so long looking inward at something in his own mind’s eye that all external matters are as dust to him unless they bear a connection to that _something_ , or like Loki’s case, presented itself as a means to an end – one that only Stark himself could see, one that he clearly wasn’t about to share.

Stark had a howling tempest of a soul, a restless and stalking hunger that binds him as tautly as the iron chains that he’d freed Loki from all those months ago. In sharing such close spaces with him Loki has come to see these invisible chains almost clearly as he can see the man, but its source remains a mystery. _Something_ drove Stark – drove him with a cold, almost _machine_ -like tenacity, powered by what looked suspiciously like an abstract and strangely empty rage. Loki might be immortal by heritage, but Stark, Stark is immortal by _resolve_.

Sometimes there had been moments in Stark's company that Loki found simultaneously repealing but strangely compelled to - 

‘What are you looking at?’

‘Nothing,’ Loki says, and looks away. But it is never nothing.

There have been moments, a creeping number of such moments. Sudden and disquieting, perhaps in the midst of battle, or dinner, or just a random moment of silence, when Loki would look up from his food and feel the sudden urge to flee, as if some extraneous forth sense had soaked up the scent of a predator in the periphery.

But no matter how self-absorbed or bland the mortal’s curiosity, it isn’t Stark but is his own lack of inquisitiveness that he fears most.

Loki does not know who is the monster between them. He does not care.

Stark catches his eye again and smirks. ‘See something you like, Greensleeves?’

The size of your ego, is the automatic palaver Loki wants to make, but it is too familiar, as if they were equals, perhaps even friends. He holds his tongue instead.

It never mattered; whatever Stark sets in motion, violence would surely pour forth. 

*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the shortness of this chapter... :/


End file.
